Reviewed by Kat

TITLE: Real World 

SERIES: Love is Blind (Book 2) 

AUTHOR: B.A. Tortuga 

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press 

LENGTH: 290 pages 

RELEASE DATE: August 15, 2016 

BLURB: 

Dan White is trying to acclimate to civilian life after a long career in the military with multiple combat deployments.

Now he’s home in the Austin area, living with his brother Dixon, Dixon’s husband, Audie, and their two nine-year-olds. During the New Year celebration, Dan meets Abraham Weldon, and the connection is instant.

There’s a kiss. There’s a dance. There’s a proposition.

Then Dan finds out Weldon is bisexual.

And a dad.

With five kids. Five kids, one of whom is a blind fifteen-year-old.

Weldon has been in love twice in his life—with his high school best friend, Blake, and with his wife, Krista, who he met in a Dairy Queen as she was crying over a positive pregnancy test. Love number three hits Weldon like a hammer when he meets Dan.

But since Dan isn’t interested in a guy with kids, they might only get one night together. 

REVIEW:

This is my first book/series by BA Tortuga and, if the rest of her books are anything like this, it definitely won’t be my last! I loved this book.

This book picked up a couple years later from where “Ever the Same” ended.  Dixon is performing a New Year’s Eve concert with his husband, Audie, and his newly discharged brother, Dan, in attendance. Audie and Dixon have moved back to Austin on their own ranch and Dan is staying with them and their two nine-year old children. Audie is still raising/training quarter horses. Dixon is tackling, and ever adjusting to, his blindness and is now teaching music to students who are blind also. He and Audie made friends with one of his students’ dad, Weldon, and invited him to the New Year’s Eve bash. Sparks fly when the two men, Dan and Weldon, lay eyes then hands and lips on each other. Things are going great until the news that Weldon, who is bi-sexual, is a widower with five kids. Dan hasn’t ever had a long term relationship and Weldon…as Audie states, “Weldon’s looking for long-term. There’s not a short-term bone in the man’s body.” “Real World” is Dan and Weldon’s journey to see how things might work out.

Lately I have been given books with really caring, thoughtful and compassionate men. Men who live a life of honor and integrity. I don’t think you could get anymore honorable than Weldon. He takes on a girl for his own who is already pregnant and then raises the son as his own. A baby that is born with a major disability, blind at birth. Then he goes on to have four more before his wife dies from complications from childbirth. But Weldon is a rock. He does what he needs to do to raise his kids right, in a loving home. He’s not a saint, as Dan knows first-hand, but is the type of man that you would be proud to call a son, husband, father or lover. Being freshly ex-military, five kids scare the wits out of Dan, and rightly so. I loved how these men face up to trials and tackle the rough times. It wasn’t always easy but love helps.

I love that we got to see Audie and Dixon more, along with the kids, and were introduced to all of Weldon’s extended family and support group. Mel, Krista’s mom was especially rewarding. I would hope to be as great a grandma to my grandchildren as she is to her’s. She is as warm and loving as can be but tough as a Mama bear! Don’t you go pissing her off or there will be hell to pay!!! I also loved the full development of each of Weldon’s children’s characters. They were a huge part of this story and extremely well done.

I think the backstory is better understood if you read the first book in the series “Ever the Same” first. I highly recommend this wonderful and moving story of love against all odds. Great book in a really fabulous series. Can’t wait for more.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

ARe